September 2009

First of all, I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Department of Development and Planning at Aalborg University. You have all contributed to the creation of an interdisciplinary environment in which new thoughts are welcome, and useful and fruitful comments are always made on the basis of a variety of different skills and competences. I have used this professional richness many times throughout my career. In particular, I would like to thank Frede Hvelplund for many years of excellent friendship and research partnership, including the joint involvement in most of the cases on which this book is based. Without your help and inspiration, I would never have been able to write this book.

Thanks to Mette Reiche Sørensen from the Department for providing excellent and efficient linguistic support, as well as making comments to clarify the discussions in this book. And thanks to Annelle Riberholt for text editing and to Jimmi Jensen for assisting with the many diagrams.

Thanks to the following members of the research group of Energy Planning for many years of good collaboration, as well as the helpful comments made on the manuscript: Poul Alberg Østergaard, Bernd Möller, Morten Boje Blarke, Brian Vad Mathiesen, Georges Salgi, Marie Münster, and visiting researcher David Connolly from Limerick University in Ireland. And thanks to Niels I. Meyer, Andrew Jamison, Bent Flyvbjerg, and Jes Adolphson for contributing with helpful comments on the book. Moreover, thanks to Woody W. Clark II for many years of inspiring collaboration, as well as his contribution to Chapter 6.

Thanks to professors Tim Richardson, Aalborg University, Thomas B. Johansson, Lund University and Olav Hohmeyer, Flensburg University for competent and inspiring discussions during the assessment and defence of the content of this book for the senior doctoral degree in April 2009.

Thanks to Anders. N. Andersen of EMD international for convincing me to convert the EnergyPLAN model into Windows-based Pascal. And thanks to Ebbe Münster, Henning Mæng, and Leif Tambjerg of PlanEnergi and EMD for helping me design, test, and develop the model for almost 10 years.

Thanks to Sigurd Lauge Pedersen of the Danish Energy Authority, Jens Pedersen of Energinet.dk, and Hans Henrik Lindboe of EA Consulting for an inspiring collaboration on modeling during the work in the expert group on CHP and renewable energy in 2001 and onward. And thanks to Poul Erik Morthorst, Peter Maibom, and Kenneth Karlson of DTU/Risø National Energy Laboratory for providing similar inspiration.

Thanks to the team of the Dubrovnik Conferences, including Professors Naim Afgan, Noam Lior, Zvonimir Guzovic, Zeljko Bogdan, and, in particular, Neven Duic and Goran Krajacic of Zagreb University, for contributing with inspiring discussions and comparative studies on different energy systems analysis models.

Thanks to Willett Kempton of Delaware University for fruitful collaboration on the modeling of V2Gs (vehicle to grid), as well his contribution to Chapter 5.

Thanks to Marie Münster for providing helpful collaboration and inputs to the modeling of waste technologies.

Thanks to Brian Elmegaard of Technical University of Denmark, Axel Hauge Pedersen of DONG Energy and Henning Parbo, and Kim Behnke of Energinet.dk for contributing with helpful comments on the modeling of CAES (compressed air energy storage).

Thanks to the steering committee of the Danish Society of Engineers’ “Energy Year 2006” for inviting me and my colleague Brian Vad Mathiesen to conduct the overall technical and economic analyses of the project: Søren Skibstrup Eriksen, Per Nørgaard, Kurt Emil Eriksen, John Schiøler Andersen, Thomas Sødring, Charles Nielsen, Hans Jørgen Brodersen, Mogens Weel Hansen, and Bjarke Fonnesbech. And thanks to all participants in “Energy Year 2006,” whose inputs and expertise formed the basis for the study.

Thanks to the team of the Aalborg Energy Office of the early 1980s, especially Poul Bundgaard, for his involvement in the Nordkraft power plant case.

Thanks to my fellow students in 1984, Frank Rosager, Henning Mæng, Lars Mortensen, and Sofie Jörby, for designing “Alternative 4” in the Aalborg Heat Planning case. And thanks to city council member Willy Gregersen for insisting on the involvement of university staff in “real-life” problems and planning procedures both in the Heat Planning case and in the case of the Nordjyllandsværk.

Thanks to the Biomass Secretariat of the Danish Energy Authority, in the early 1990s headed by Helge Ørsted Pedersen and Kaare Sandholt, for involving me in the work of analyzing large-scale biogas plants.

Thanks to the many people and organizations that became involved in the case of the Nordjyllandsværk. I especially thank Peter Høstgaard Jensen and Flemming Nissen from the power companies for presenting persistent and very competent counterarguments throughout the public debate.

Thanks to all the people and organizations that involved themselves in the transmission line case in the mid-1990s, including the East Himmerland Energy Office headed by Marianne Bender. Moreover, I would like to thank county council members Thyge Steffensen and Karl Bornhøft for making every possible effort to secure a decent inclusion of relevant alternatives in the decision making.

Thanks to Ulrich Jochimsen of Netzwerk Dezentrale Energienutzung for initiating our involvement in the Lausitz case in 1992. And thanks to Niels Winther Knudsen and Annette Grunwald for a fruitful collaboration on the design and promotion of an alternative energy strategy.

Thanks to the General Workers’ Union, in particular Ole Busck and Sussi Handberg, for inviting me to participate in the making of the Green Energy Plan in the mid-1990s.

Thanks to Ejwin Beuse and Finn Tobiesen from the Danish Organisation for Renewable Energy for involving me and my colleagues in Thai energy planning. And thanks to the following participants in the workshop in Bangkok in 1999 for initiating and contributing to the Prachuap Khiri Khan power plant case: Dr. Decharut Sukkumnoed and S. (Bank) Nunthavorakarn of Kasetsart University and Dr. Aroon Lawanprasert and Ms. Sumniang Natakuatoong of Thammasat University in Bangkok.

Thanks to Managing Director Asbjørn Bjerre for initiating my involvement in the design of feasibility studies of Danish wind power, including the case of the Economic Council in 2002. And thanks to Karl Emil Serup from Århus Business School and Carsten Heyn-Johnsen and Erik Christensen from Aalborg University for helpful discussions and comments.

Thanks to guest writer Paul Quinlan for his contribution to Chapter 7.

Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my wife, Søsser Lund, both for bringing me along when she involved herself in kinesiology in the 1980s, which later inspired me to the term Choice Awareness, and for listening and participating in many talks on the subject of this book.

Finally, I would like to thank my two daughters Olivia and Fanny for making each a drawing for this book, one showing a wind turbine illustrating renewable energy and the other illustrating the Hobsons’ Choice: “This horse or none!”